‘Detroit’ stars are spending a lot of time here filming ‘The Chi’

LOS ANGELES — “I’d tell you stuff, but then I’d have to kill you,” joked Jason Mitchell, referring to his upcoming Showtime series”The Chi,” filming in Chicago and executive produced by music and acting superstar, Common.

Though he’s said to be playing an ambitious would-be restaurant owner, the actor chose to keep quiet about his storylines on the show, an hourlong drama created by “Master of None” actress Lena Waithe.

While Mitchell was clearly jovial in his faux death threat, he turned deadly serious when the talk turned to his film “Detroit” (opening Friday), Kathryn Bigelow’s look back at the Michigan city’s riots during the summer of 1967. The film centers on the murders of three young black men at the Algiers Motel — committed by a small group of racist white police officers.

“Here we are 50 years later, and America is still dealing with some of the same, basic issues about race and prejudice that are shown in our movie,” said Mitchell.

His co-star Jacob Latimore also is on “The Chi” and also insisted on remaining mum about the series. But he agreed about the message of “Detroit.”

“I come from Milwaukee, and we have recently experienced a number of racial incidents — though nothing as horrible as what happened in Detroit in ’67,” said Latimore. “I know about how far we’ve come, but also how far we as a country have yet to go.”

Added Mitchell, “At the end of the day, you come to realize both how senseless those boys’ killings were, and how horrible it was that a kind of mob mentality led to them losing their lives.”

Another “Detroit” star is Anthony Mackie, who predicted the film “will start a conversation. When you look at this, it sparks the opportunity of understanding for people on the other side. We as a society should have a conversation about why police are afraid of black men, and why black men are so aggressive toward the police. That’s the only way that healing and understanding is going to start.

In the film, he plays a decorated Vietnam War veteran whose acclaimed military background is not respected by the Detroit police officers he encounters at the Algiers Motel.

“It you look at most of the black soldiers who came back from Vietnam, at no point in time were they treated with dignity or respect. At no point in time were they allowed to go out to Staten Island [New York] and buy a house and start a family. They were pushed back into the slums. They weren’t given the Veterans Administration treatment and counseling they deserved. As a result of that, a lot of them were just left out to the wolves in trying to figure out life, after coming back from one of the worst wars in our history.”